A spot to highlight my Triton sailboat, her sailing adventures and restoration challenges. For those of you smart enough to run from a total 'gut-job' restoration but like to follow the miseries of those less wise, I hope I can provide you with some entertainment.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Today was the day I was going to announce the conclusion of my sanding preparation prior to applying the first coat of high build primer. The last few days of rainy weather foiled that plan. A dry shelter is key to making lots of progress on these projects. The weather has been a tremendous impediment and next time I will secure better cover before I start. Actually, I thought I did but it fell through. Oh well.

I remained productive today.

Nothing too exciting. I cleaned up some of my wood bits on the deck and oiled them in preparation for some varnishing weather. The wood bit in the picture extends the little scrap of wood at the point of the bow. My anchor roller needed a bigger platform to mount to so that was my solution.

The half window frame represents an hour and a half of work. The deadlights and opening ports were heavily bedded in silicone. Nasty stuff. Almost impossible to remove. I scraped and scraped and wire brushed it off eventually. One frame down, 7 more to go. Then I can start on the opening ports...

I am getting a little worried. When the boat comes back from the paint shop I need to get the deck stuff on relatively quickly to keep the weather out of the boat. I really don't want to be dragging tarps on and off my new paint and I really don't want to build a full cover in the middle of summer because of the heat buildup. Nothing is easy.

The early parts of the week were consumed with large grit sandpaper, removing the last traces of failed primer from last year. I just need to go over it again with 120 grit. Last fall I attempted to long board a few sections of the hull to see if I could clean it up a bit. There were some wavy bits from the original construction and a few spots where I messed up with the course sanding. The long boarding was not very successful. Truth be known, I created more scratches than I faired smooth so in total it was a step backwards. The trick/solution was taught to me by a fellow boat restorer. A palm sander. I wasn't too sure about that but by working the palm sanding at right angles to the scratches and sanding marks I was able to smooth up the hull quite a bit. Not enough to consider making the entire hull glass smooth but enough to cover my errors. It was a good tip. I will remember that.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy again. Monday is looking much better. I guess I better make sure I have my priming materials in order...

Well I know really. It was a rainy day and I want to say my boat is 100% silicone free :-) The ports are a project when nothing else can get done so they aren't really slowing me down in any real sense. They may reduce my opportunity to live a normal life but I really don't hold out much hope for that anyway.